Business Strategy

In many ways 'millennial-talk' is hyperbole. Taken literally, if I believed everything that has been written about millennials - I shouldn't be writing this. My sense of entitlement would mean that I'd be resigning from my third job to launch a start-up that sells digital mindfulness from a semi-derelict storeroom...

Trying to make brands more relatable, managers formulate emotional visions and ascribe human character traits to their brands, illustrated through corporate values. These are often taken from a rather shallow pool of virtues that are believed to resonate with target audience.

As a business and enterprise coach I am frequently asked about the kinds of skills and qualities I think new business owners need to develop. Now, everyone is different and we all come with a unique skill set. But there are three skills I believe to be universal if you are going to flourish as a freelance, self employed person or entrepreneur.

Starting a business today is far tougher than a few years ago, not only do you have to know your business, you have to know how to market your business within your budget in a world where companies are spending tens of thousands on marketing and branding.

I spend my working life helping organisations deal with disruption. I focus on the media and entertainment industry these days, but I've covered sectors as diverse as health, energy, transport, and financial services.

I had dinner last night with a group of company executives who asked me about the best place in the world to locate the finance department of their company. This is a global organisation with thousands of people employed across the world and a finance function presently located in Western Europe.

Britain's economy is well on the path for growth and 2014 is set to be a great year for business. With the right people in place and a healthy cashflow, British businesses will be in good shape to build and maintain successful long-term strategies. And who knows, perhaps the next Google or Facebook will be born from these shores.

The cloud differentiates in three ways from traditional hosting, as it is sold for the time the customer needs to use it, its services are flexible and accessible with nothing more than internet access.

Given how central customer loyalty is to the bottom line for every smart company, I wanted to share five insights and action points from my research that I believe are essential to getting a customer loyalty strategy right

So why are Millennial women a point of attraction for investment? Only because they're born in the capital of fashion: the dream shopping destination for all consumers with a soft spot for designer wear.

Looming before business organisations is an opportunity in disguise: dark data. With specialist skills, it can be captured in a readable, scalable format and increase productivity and customer loyalty, giving you a competitive advantage.

In the past, most CIOs would have had a number of technical staff in their teams dedicated to 'keeping the lights on' existing and legacy infrastructure. As they move to a model through which their organisation is purchasing IT services from a third party through the cloud, the demand for that kind of technical skillset will inevitably decline.

February 2014 will 'seduce, satisfy and serve' you - surprisingly, the verbs promised by no male. Prepare to meet Porter, a clean-cut, 300-page publication and an anticipated addition to Natalie Massenet's, founder, of Net-A-Porter's growing narrative.

Working environments have become more pressurised. With obtaining and retaining business now incredibly competitive, clients are becoming ever more demanding for their cash. However increased workloads in conjunction with reduced response times (further exacerbated since e-mail went mobile) means that employees are rarely given the necessary freedom to produce their best work.
Overall, whilst the advertising industry naturally holds innovation and creativity as paramount importance, client pressures typically prevent such a culture from being entrenched into working life, and is instead an all too often an unfamiliar luxury. But what's being done and how can we all make room to be more creative?

How much time do you spend on managing your 'personal brand'? What others think and say about you is vital to anyone's success in business or in their career. It's not simply about whether people speak positively about you, or otherwise; it's the context in which they speak about you and your strengths.

By keeping these core elements at the heart of a social media strategy, businesses ensure that even in the worst case scenario, there is often scope for a level of engagement with their desired audience.

A business's success isn't determined by its strategy, it's determined by what it actually does - products, service, markets, prices etc. - so for organisations that fall into this meaningless strategy trap the resulting lack of action is a major problem.

There's a huge opportunity for Brits to catch up with their American and French counterparts in the creativity stakes, and such an untapped resource could prove hugely beneficial to brands when it comes to competing on the world stage.

or a vast majority of companies Social Media is still new. However, because many of the customers a business would like to reach, spend an increasing amount of time on these platforms, companies have come to recognise the importance of being involved.